 At the time that we started this recording, live video feeds coming in from Gaza and the surrounding areas showed that the Israeli bombardment shelling continued through the night. The skyline was lit up by the fires ensuing from this bombardment. Israel's Defence Ministry has called for a total blockade on the Gaza Strip. We will try to understand what this means for the over 2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza. And in the United Kingdom, a public inquiry has begun to hear allegations against the British military about alleged war crimes including the killings of several civilians and unknown people in Afghanistan during the country's 20-year occupation as part of a 20-year participation in the occupying force in that country. We try to understand what are the expectations that the public can have from this inquiry. Salam, you are watching Daily Debrief. Take this chance to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Reports coming in from Gaza and Israel indicate that over 1300 people have already been killed since Hamas launched a surprise military operation against Israel. Israel in retaliation or as a response has launched the biggest ever airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in history causing massive damage to homes, to civilian infrastructure and of course life in the Gaza Strip to whatever extent it was allowed. The blockade that is already enforced will be doubly reinforced. It's now going to be a complete blockade including no entry of electricity, fuel or food into the Gaza Strip. Anish is with us and will be with us for our continued coverage of what is happening between Hamas and Israel and also all of the other aspects of this conflict and how many players in the region are involved. Anish, first up the UN chief has said that he is deeply distressed, particularly by the attacks on civilian infrastructure like university, hospitals, homes of course. What has been the response though from Israel's western friends and allies to the scale of the airstrikes against Gaza? Well, it's a very typical response at this point in time. What we've seen from the West by and large and leaders of the West politicians is how they have consistently insisted on this line that the attack by Hamas was unprovoked and this is something that has been repeated ad nauseam across the board, across political parties and it clearly shows the inclination that the ruling of the West has pretty much when it comes to matters that concerns Israel and Palestine and despite whatever they might talk about human rights or talk about self-determination in other countries when it comes to Palestine it's pretty much the same kind of very occupier friendly narrative that we see and in some cases there are already talks of military aid like Biden has already announced a military aid and weapons to Israel in its supposed bid to defend itself. There's also this whole line of them insisting that Israel has the right to defend itself when United Nations have repeatedly and various bodies within the United Nations have repeatedly pointed out that Israel is an occupying force and occupiers do not necessarily have the same kind of right of self-defense as say a sovereign nation with another sovereign nation occupying force does not have that kind of right against the occupied population and in this case we also need to look at how a lot of them are completely obfuscating the history not just what we're looking at since 1948 or whatever but it's also very recent history the fact that the past two years Israel has actually amped up its violence on Palestinians it has like last year itself there were you know what was reported to be record number of killings in the West Bank the same level of and record number of arrests under what they call as administrative detentions all of that is ignored the number of homes that were destroyed the number of villages that were raised to make way for illegal settlements that is also missing from this narrative and so is the fact that Gaza has been bombarded continuously for more than two decades now by Israel with no concern for human rights no concern for civilian life or unarmed citizens it has attacked schools it has attacked hospitals it has pretty much scrapped the entire Gaza airport at one point in 2001 and all of that is completely missed out and this entire factor that Israel has been provoking the population with no limit with an intent to completely eliminate them is completely absent at this sort of current set of reactions that we see and of course the UN chief like we were mentioning earlier Anish has focused his comments particularly on the humanitarian condition close to 45% unemployment already before this particular conflict began or chapter in the conflict began 65 also percent of people are facing hunger issues food insecurity and then when refugee camps and such places also come under attack further complicates the situation possibilities of outbreak of disease and all of those things so an already challenging humanitarian situation made much worse Anish definitely the characterization of this as a siege is not without its reasons the fact that this was already a blockaded piece of land in fact the most blockaded piece of land that we have ever seen in human history in fact there has not been the kind of extensive blockade that actually even prevents it from accessing the seas which it is which bothers it or for that matter any kind of aid that it wherever Israel starts attacking it and right now we have already seen the asterisks targeting the tunnels the underground tunnels that actually was pretty much the lifeline for in many ways apart from being a source for Hamas to acquire its resources it was also a major lifeline for the Palestinians living there for aid for food for water even and this all of this is a fact that they pretty much want to you know conduct a cleansing of sort and the fact that you know Netanyahu made the statement that he wants to turn Gaza into a deserted island it clearly shows the intent with which Israel is acting that it has shown no concern for international loss and it definitely does not intend to make you know to be concerned about whatever international sanctions it might attract because of its actions what it cares about is just retaliating to a point where it might even conduct a genocide of its own and just finally Anish quickly we can anything from the Israeli military's plans is there sort of indicators that possible ground action will also be initiated to sort of complete what's going on Yes definitely what we have already we are seeing reports right now about how Israel has declared that it is mobilizing about 300,000 reserve forces in you know in its bid to conduct its war on Gaza 300,000 for to deal with our 2 million population like the excessiveness is obviously quite evident but it intends to invade Gaza at this point that's pretty much clear how and when is the question and that is something that we can be entirely clear on and something that we can't really get into right now as well but definitely what we are looking at is that it is currently dealing with the fact that the resistance is still there in Israel it's still active and fighting in southern Israel and the fact that this is happening despite all the strikes despite the blockade despite the kind of you know siege that Israel is trying to lay on Gaza that the resistance fighters are there and we have to remember they are fighting in occupation force and even this is something that is recognized by international law that they are fighting within territories that were actually you know considered to be part of Palestine under the 1948 partition plan which is something that most of the world except for a handful of nations in the West most of the world considers to be the definite plan for any kind of two state solution and considers these territories to be part of Palestine and by extension Gaza is the fact that these fighters are trying to shine light on the fact that all the promises that Israel has been has offered over the years about you know whatever two Palestinians especially has been refused and has been withdrawn upon and that Israel is a proper occupying force in the territories that it is fighting right now We will leave this part here for this episode of Daily DB Finish but we will talk to you about a second story as well and ask you of course to join us again I am sure very soon to continue coverage of the Israel Hamas conflict that is going on and how the resistance will continue given what is likely to be a full on military onslaught even more than it already is Our second story and our final bit for today is like I was mentioning earlier a public inquiry that has begun in the United Kingdom on allegations of war crimes against the British military or members of the British military that were operating while they were posted in Afghanistan during that country's participation in the coalition occupation that lasted as long as almost two decades We have of course there are about these particular allegations pertain to as many as 80 civilian deaths and also point to the involvement of an elite regiment the SAS Special Air Service of British military Anish you have been also tracking developments on this and we have talked about sort of war crimes and atrocities committed by occupying forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan quite frequently What is happening here and how is it going to take the conversation on some of these issues forward? Well it is quite an interesting inquiry because the figures that we are looking at right now 80 civilian deaths is not an exhaustive list it probably is just the tip of the iceberg because it is based on the BBC investigation report last year which found that about at least 56 civilian deaths were completely on call for and the SAS were responsible for it and all of that happened under very questionable circumstances and it took about more than a year right now to actually for the government to hold an inquiry to hold a trial even to actually get the testimonies in and now we are seeing these 80 deaths Now we must remember that the BBC report itself was talking about a six month tour of a single detachment of the SAS and it clearly shows that the crimes probably are much much bigger and much more prevalent and that something of this sort couldn't have just happened in a single detachment's tour and that it probably was the norm rather than the aberration as some of them want to talk about or some kind of collateral damage that a justified war might have but so the fact that this inquiry is happening is good in that it is happening but the fact that there is still uncertainty of how far it will go because A, the Ministry of Defence is not going to tour or visit the victims in Afghanistan they are not going to investigate in Afghanistan because obviously there is no longer any proper diplomatic or bilateral relations between UK and Afghanistan because of Taliban's takeover but on the other hand so what we have is pretty much these testimonies of people of Danes who have access to the British judicial system who are at least represented by lawyers there but there are plenty of more that need to be uncovered and it clearly shows that there needs to be some level of soul searching by the British administration of its conduct in Afghanistan and pretty much similar wars around the world because this is not the first time that we are looking at a participant nation in the Allied forces in Afghanistan to be found guilty of war crimes we have similarly reported about Australia, about how a business blower who was just legal consultant to the military brought out similar crimes where these were not even raids or killings that were committed in any kind of attacks many of them were rights of initiation for some cases that clearly shows a culture of violence of the occupying forces that really needs digging much deeper in but something that most states do not know Australia in fact is responded by jailing or prosecuting the whistleblower in this case UK is slightly better but we have to wait and see if they are ready to take this forward and to actually dig deeper Anish, even in the context of the response to the airstrikes on Gaza Western nations have been called out for their hypocrisy as you were pointing out also the comparative where it comes to Ukraine Is there in your coverage of various such inquiries stories that come out whistleblowers who share information a sense within the establishment in these countries that actually coming clean might sort of go some way towards repairing that reputation of being perpetual hypocrites I think that's a very interesting question but I don't think that's anywhere near the horizon it's a very tricky thing because a lot of them do talk about international laws or maintaining international law but many of them are some of the biggest violators of the said international laws and very often they do overlook all of that for their convenience primarily because they were former colonizers as well so that legacy definitely carries on but there is also this fact that many of them have never touched the fact that the international community rarely ever sanctions them with the same kind of vigor and enthusiasm that they do to some other nations for far lesser violations clearly shows is the reason why such impunity continues and the fact that we will continue to see some of the same kind of it's quite likely that we will continue to see similar atrocities in the near future unless something about it is done we are already talked about an oncoming invasion in another part of the world we are looking at a current war in one part of the world and then there are other places that are feeling in different kinds of crisis and in all of that the warmongers are pretty much the same so right now in this particular case it kind of pretty much opens up to what they want to do they definitely want to save face because they were exposed so they are trying to put up an inquiry but you know some of the fact that even the government is trying to not name SAS itself they are just trying to mention them as special forces because they want to quote unquote maintain official secrecy of their forces or their operations there clearly shows that they are trying to use various ways to protect themselves from any kind of actual justice being meted out is quite indicative of how things are going to move forward but I'm saying let's keep our hopes to the minimum if something good happens obviously that's a different thing we can celebrate but it's quite rare for those responsible to be actually taken to justice and that is something that it's not impossible but it's going to be far more difficult and it's definitely going to be a far longer process we're looking at it already something that has happened 13 years ago and we are hearing an inquiry right now so it clearly shows that the delay is going to be much much longer than what we would have normally expected in other cases alright thanks Anish for giving us updates on both those important stories and of course we'll see you very very soon for those of you who are watching here's another chance to of course subscribe but also head to our website thinkosyspatch.org for details on all of the work that we do also you can get updates on social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram if you like we'll be back same time same place tomorrow until then thanks again for watching